Ron Paul's Secession Blackmail of America

Michael Peck
, ContributorI cover defense and national security.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Perhaps Ron Paul meant to sound noble when he spoke last week of secession "as a deeply American principle." Perhaps in his own mind, he pictured himself as one of the Founding Fathers, affixing his signature in florid hand to the Declaration of Independence. And never mind that as George Washington proved when he led a military expedition against Pennsylvanian farmers in the Whiskey Rebellion, the last thing that ex-revolutionaries turned national leaders were prepared to tolerate was secession.

Because the Founding Fathers knew that a nation that permitted secession, without the consent of the entire nation, cannot endure. If secession is a fundamental right that some Texans can petition the White House for secession, then why not honor Atlanta's petition to secede from the state of Georgia? And if your state can secede at will, then why can't your county, your town, or even your street declare independence? Where does it stop?

Is there a fundamental right to secede? Sure there is, in the same way that robbing your neighbor's house can be justified as a fundamental right if you are starving. It's not the abstract right in question, but when it should be applied. The Founding Fathers revolted because they did not want to be ruled by a king and country on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The American Civil War was fought over states' rights; even if that was the right to enslave other human beings, it could be at least be said that the issue behind secession was significant.

And what does Ron Paul cite as justification for secession? Obamacare. Medical marijuana laws. All important issues, to be sure, and ones that raise questions about federal versus state powers. But they are not reasons to threaten to dissolve the United States. If they are, then what's next? Texas seceding over civil rights laws, or evolution being taught in schools, or maybe Obama's tie is the wrong color?

This isn't liberty. This is petulance, a political temper tantrum for Americans who didn't get their way and can't understand that the price of maintaining a great nation like the United States is that none of us gets what we wish for all the time. Change the laws, yes. Elect politicians who support your views, yes. But don't destroy the nation because you can't smoke pot.